Take That - Progress

Well I'm not exactly a Take That fan, but considering they write their own songs and record the music themselves I do think they're quite good, and it's great they don't constantly release singles that consist of other peoples songs! Was watching the tv yesterday and saw an advert for their new album Progress, typical advert with a shot of the video for the new single, group shot and then finally the album cover (2010 and the CD is still advertised). While the cover is not the typical pop/boyband boring photo, at first glance it made me laugh very loud.

Yes it's bright yellow, and contains an image based on the evolution image, except it is each member of the group as a different stage. As a design it's quite quirky and after looking at it a bit more I do think it is quite an original design. The reason it made me laugh was because you can make out their faces and hair styles and it's like they are evolving into the guy ascending, which gives off a Christ-like image. I then found an article about it on the guardians website http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/oct/19/take-that-new-album-cover
which made me laugh even more as it says that "Gary Barlow seems to be looking up Mark Owen's Bottom" The article also says that the concept of evolution has been used in FatBoy Slims "Right Here Right Now" Music Video and on Supertramp's 1985 album "Brother Where You Bound" album cover...

Wow, it's very similar but it doesn't have the Christ style ascension on the end, this is just the typical evolution image and it probably doesn't include the band members as each stage. The other thing I found interesting about the article is how it talks about the pecking order of the band, does it mean the one at the end is the least evolved/most ashamed and the one at the front is the most evolved and proudest, or was it just to stop any arguments between the newly re-united Gary Barlow and Robbie Williams, as they are both the main vocalists in the band and Barlow writes all of the songs, whereas the ascending member and the one behind him are mainly the backing vocalists. I think this was purely to stop any arguments between the higher ego members, but it is an interesting point, especially if you are a passive listener and only know the names of the three members who aren't at the front.

In terms of the design, could it have been any better? That's a tough question as it is a bold and colourful cover, but the yellow does remind me of the yellow pages a bit too much. Maybe if they used a different colour and made it more of an anonymous and ambiguous image like the Supertramp one. I'm interested to see what other people think.

I just quickly messed around with the colour and a couple of filters on photoshop to see if I could make an improvement.

The bright green keeps the colour intense, without looking like the yellow pages. It also gives more of an earthy/forest feel to the shot. I then made the image a bit blurred so you need to look a bit closer to make out each member (except Robbie as his quiff is intact) but other than that it doesn't look that different and I think the original is a good design, obviously Take That are happy with it and that's what matters at the end of the day.